So, What's Preventing Costume Asymmetry?
By
Angelxman81,
Posted on: 2012-04-19 09:51 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
If I remember correctly it takes up more system resources than symmetry and the concern is large groups of assymmetrical characters would cause significant performance issues. Something like that, not 100% sure and how its different for robotic arm or big shoulder pieces on one side.
Important? not sure how important to me.
@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
As I understand it, pieces attach to the rig symmetrically. It's just the way the skeletons were built back in the day. In order to do asymmetric costume pieces, they have to either A) make them their own costume bit (like the Gladiator shoulders), requiring each asymmetric costume piece to be made individually (with one thing on one side and another on the other side, with what those pieces are locked in place) or B) rebuild the rig and all the costume pieces from the ground-up. At this point, option B is a little limited. The robotic arm rig is a cheat is an example of option A, which is why there's so few things you can do with it.
Apparently, the main problem is the extra resources needed to render 2 sets of textures for the arms.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
But we could have a 1 shoulder option from now for future and even latest shoulder pieces.
Like Resistance single and double.
I dont get why we dont have that already.
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That's a fair assessment, but doesn't it do just that when loading Robotic Arm? If it doesn't do that, then what exactly IS it loading?|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Apparently, the main problem is the extra resources needed to render 2 sets of textures for the arms.
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I understand that, in development, loading these features may have looked like a tasking assignment, but the times are far-changed- I think giving it a second (or third) look with the current technological limits would be great.
If nothing else, to give the player a greater feeling of control over the costume of their Hero/Villain- the Resistance pieces were very nice, but I think proliferation of such a thing would not be enough.
Don't get me wrong- I'd love to have the option of selecting a shoulder and then be given an option in a sub-menu: Both, Right Only, Left Only, but I giving us two different kinds of shoulders per model would also be pretty nice.
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I think it does - which is why they haven't made many more |
Originally Posted by Sigium
That's a fair assessment, but doesn't it do just that when loading Robotic Arm?
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Also a fair assessment. However, doesn't the existence of just one set mean the devs had to, at some point, have said "Well, here's the deal... This could cause the server some severe problems if too many people wear it at once. Let's put it in game anyway."?|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
I think it does - which is why they haven't made many more
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I don't see a multitude of people walking around with said arms, but they're still available- couldn't it be considered non-game-breaking to implement something like that on a larger scale?
Once again, I think the CoH server capacity/hardware capabilities has improved since launch- I don't think there's that same risk of lag, or other associated problems from loading more textures.
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I think that they made it with the intention of making more, but found out that it was causing a few small problems, and decided not to make anymore - the performance hit mightn't have been picked up during beta testing, so they mighn't have known about it until it was already released on the live servers.
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Originally Posted by Sigium
Also a fair assessment. However, doesn't the existence of just one set mean the devs had to, at some point, have said "Well, here's the deal... This could cause the server some severe problems if too many people wear it at once. Let's put it in game anyway."?
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Just as a public service announcement, performance is never EVER the deciding factor of what the devs will or will not do. The resources in question are development resources, not technical resources.
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Originally Posted by MentalMaden
If I remember correctly it takes up more system resources than symmetry and the concern is large groups of assymmetrical characters would cause significant performance issues.
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I think the reason why we don't have more costume asymmetry is the same general reason why we don't have loincloths or animated hair like some of the NPCs do: Our player character body models simply lack enough "anchor points" to attach these various things all at the same time.
Sadly I suspect they would have to do major fundamental rework of much of the character models and animations in this game to give us more anchor points to make many of these related things possible. 
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I'm betting it's the Evil Marketing Department. Rumour has it that they seem to be behind everything bad these days.
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Actually, I suspect it is the symmetry lobbyists in Washington.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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Since you are quoting me, note I did say I wasn't 100% sure (you seemed to leave that part out). It was always my understanding it was a performance issue, but I very well could be mistaken.
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Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
Just as a public service announcement, performance is never EVER the deciding factor of what the devs will or will not do. The resources in question are development resources, not technical resources.
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@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
As much as I want new custom arms, the thing is if they were released everyone would be wearing them at once because it's the new Shiny(tm).
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Shadow_Mokadara
costumes are already asymmetrical vertically and radially, now you want asymmetry horziontally as well?
some people are just never happy
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Tell that to the City Vault.
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Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
Just as a public service announcement, performance is never EVER the deciding factor of what the devs will or will not do. The resources in question are development resources, not technical resources.
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@Quasadu
"We must prepare for DOOM and hope for FREEM." - SirFrederick
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Apparently YOU haven't met my main, Long Legs McGee.
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Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
costumes are already asymmetrical vertically and radially, now you want asymmetry horziontally as well?
some people are just never happy |
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So, if someone wants to say something ridiculous, the key to making people believe it is to put a "never EVER" in front of it?|
Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
Just as a public service announcement, performance is never EVER the deciding factor of what the devs will or will not do. The resources in question are development resources, not technical resources.
|
What nonsense is it to say that performance has zero factor in anything they will or will not design and create?
It absolutely bloody well does factor in!
That's a great idea, but, unfortunately, the toll it would have on network performance is too large.
Is there some further distinction to your "public service announcement" that makes your statement true?
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
Quote:
What?! Symmetry ftw!|
Originally Posted by Electric-Knight
Actually, I suspect it is the symmetry lobbyists in Washington.
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*Actually I'd like asymmetrical options too*
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While I know asymmetrical arms and legs would be cool, I'd just be happy with asymmetrical =patterns= for our costumes.
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50/50 face is asymmetrical
single mantle cape is asymmetrical
one robot arm is asymmetrical
gladiator and big skull shoulders are asymmetrical
tied belt is asymmetrical
the ancient pack has belts that are a thing on one side only
peg leg is asymmetrical
several chest detail chains and such are asymmetrical
it's hard to do a lot with it, but there asymmetrical pieces for almost everything if you look
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Yeah, good list!|
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
50/50 face is asymmetrical
single mantle cape is asymmetrical one robot arm is asymmetrical gladiator and big skull shoulders are asymmetrical tied belt is asymmetrical the ancient pack has belts that are a thing on one side only peg leg is asymmetrical several chest detail chains and such are asymmetrical it's hard to do a lot with it, but there asymmetrical pieces for almost everything if you look |
The question, really, is why isn't there more of it?
It's not greatly important to me, but I've certainly seen it requested an awful lot, over the years, and I'm sue I'd be happy to have more asymmetrical options available. It can certainly add a nice touch to a character's look sometimes.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
Quote:
There's a big difference between a single piece that's designed to be asymmetrical, and sepearte asymmetrical pieces that can be used together.
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Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
50/50 face is asymmetrical
single mantle cape is asymmetrical one robot arm is asymmetrical gladiator and big skull shoulders are asymmetrical tied belt is asymmetrical the ancient pack has belts that are a thing on one side only peg leg is asymmetrical several chest detail chains and such are asymmetrical it's hard to do a lot with it, but there asymmetrical pieces for almost everything if you look |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Yes, I could have a robotic arm, gladiator shoulders, Imperial Dynasty 6 belt and a whole bunch of other asymmetrical stuff, but there's a FINE line between being able to make something and make something look good.|
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
it's hard to do a lot with it, but there asymmetrical pieces for almost everything if you look
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If that were true, McDonald's could market their product as gourmet food. "What?! It has a bun, it has meat, and it has cheese! It has almost everything gourmet food has!"
Recently I got a shiny, new Paragon Rewards token, which I celebrated with the Fire and Ice costume bit (the one with the awesome sword and Phoenix wings.)
What this set also came with (under the strange guise of "Robotic Arm 1") were three new arms; Fire, Ice and Crystal. I apologize if those names are not accurate, but that's the general theme of them. They're large, well-textured arms that have a sort of "blocky" look to them that goes excellently with the set- the Crystal arm, in particular, is fantastic.
However, the Crystal arm also comes with a large piece on the shoulder. This was fine until I was trying to decide shoulders of my own and realized that they were still symmetrical and if I were to put anything on it at all, it would cause some major clipping issues. Not fun, but I can deal.
My question is, to my lovely devs... What is the technical limitation that's preventing making our Costume Creator (easily CoH's biggest asset) asymmetrical?
This isn't some guy trying to express dissatisfaction with free VIP rewards, or blaming the devs that they can't do anything right and eat ponies under the light of a full moon- this is an actual question at this point.
So many resources have been funneled into the Costume Creator that it seems a bit strange, after almost 23 issues passing and close to 8 years in the making, that we're still limited by making symmetrical costumes, when in fact, having the option of asymmetry would be such an improvement.
So, an honest question, posed with an honest discussion: Devs, what is holding it back?
And to the rest of everyone- do you think this is important? Being able to select 2 different shoulders, gloves and boots? Or do you find it not too terribly big of a deal?
Thanks for reading. Have a good day.